


Silhouette

by PolarisAmane



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Badly Written Smut, Depression, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Getting Together, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Some Backstory, Working shit out, getting back together..?, light on plot, more dialogue than strictly necessary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-03-30 03:19:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19033690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PolarisAmane/pseuds/PolarisAmane
Summary: Life after prison was boring. Tammy had said that there was more to life than the con but if there was then Debbie hadn’t found it.Truth was Debbie hadn’t got what she’d thought she achieve through the Met heist. Closure was still elusive; millions spread through off-shore accounts was nice but didn’t alleviate the tedium of post-prison life; parole was its own kind of prison; and to make matters worse Lou had fucked off with little more than a good-bye kiss and a smirk, with no word on when she’d be back.Debbie knows what she wants, she just doesn’t know how to get it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Whilst attempting to write the follow up to Dust I kept getting distracted by random bits of dialogue and scenes popping up in my head that didn't at all fit in with that fic. So I started writing down these little scenes in the hope of exorcising them so that I could continue wrangling post-Dust, and this is the outcome of that.
> 
> There is no plot nor a plan here. I am just gonna hammer this out and see how it goes. Enjoyment is, as always, up to the reader's discretion. But I thank you in advance for reading!
> 
> For such a Debbie centric summary its weird that the story opens with Lou....

The temple on Lou’s sunglasses was bent and digging into the side of her head. She had tried bending it back into shape several times now and each attempt had only made it worse. Lou was usually pretty good at fixing things, had a natural talent for it, one that she had fostered over the years, but something about the simple structure of glasses eluded her. So now she was stubbornly ignoring it, just putting up with the discomfort. She’d have the last laugh when she threw the damn things in the trash.

Her coffee, half drunk on the table, was getting cold. She ignored that too. Folded her arms across her chest, piece of gum rolling between her back teeth, propped one leg up on the chair opposite her and stared out at San Francisco in all its glory. It had been years since she’d last been here - six to be exact - and the last time she’d been down had been a quick visit. It had changed a hell of a lot in those last few years; there were a lot more tech bros wandering about then she remembered. How many of her old haunts and favourite bars would still be there?

“Lou! Sorry I’m late.”

Lou turned at the sound of the voice, smile pulling at the corners of her mouth as she watched her old friend approach. Robb Dunant looked damn near the same as when Lou had last seen her. A little older, her hair shorter than ever, nearly a buzz cut, her shoulders just as broad and the thickness of her arms leaning from hard, built muscle to something softer that said she wasn’t training anymore, but she was still so recognisably Robb that Lou felt, and ruthlessly ignored, a surge of nostalgic affection in her chest. She hopped to her feet and held out her arms. Robb was a head shorter than her and the bristles of her shorn head rubbed against Lou’s chin as she pulled her in for a hug. Lou thumped her back once, grunted as Robb did the same to her much harder, knocking the wind out of her. They separated, Robb holding her at arm’s length as she looked Lou up and down.

“How is it that you don’t look any different?” she queried. She dropped her hands from Lou’s sides and smiled up at her. “You look good, Miller. Still skinny as hell.”

“You look good too.” Lou dropped back down into her seat. “Where’s Jean?”

“Bringing up the rear. Zen needed to be changed.” Robb pulled out a seat and sat down, knees spread, grinning across at Lou. “Figured you wouldn’t want a stinky diaper interrupting lunch.”

“You’re always so considerate.”

“I am,” Robb acknowledged modestly. “What are you doing here? We were pretty surprised to get your message.”

“Staving off a mid-life crisis.”

Robb’s eyes fell to Lou’s helmet sat on the table, then to the gloves next to it and drifted over to the leather jacket slung over the back of Lou’s chair. “Uh-huh. You buy a new bike? Cause if you did then I don’t think you’re quite staving it off as well as you think.”

“I think I’m holding it at bay.”

“Any new tattoos? Younger women?”

“No and no.”

“Give it time.” Robb nodded knowingly. She waved over a waiter and ordered some drinks, super green smoothies for her and Jean, and another coffee for Lou even though she hadn’t finished her first one. 

Lou rocked back on her seat, elbows on the arms rests and her knees spread. Back in the day Robb had been an expert counterfeiter. I.D’s, documents, anything you could think of, and Robb could expertly produce it. She and Debbie had used Robb’s services several times over the years. She had retired when the tools of the trade had changed. Lou still remembered listening to Robb drunk lamenting that the skill had gone out of her profession, that any kid with a Mac could do it now. 

It wasn’t just counterfeiting that was changing; the entire game was, and, not that Lou would ever admit it out loud, faster than she could really keep up. The kind of cons she and Debbie had pulled in their youth wouldn’t fly now, or the rules and hows of them were so different, had evolved past Lou, and definitely past Debbie who had missed several technological leaps and frankly never been the most tech savvy, that they wouldn’t be able to pull them off. The future of this work was with Nine Ball and Lou couldn’t wait to see how it panned out.

Jean approached from behind Robb, heavy diaper bag slung over her shoulder and a fussing baby strapped to her chest. She chucked the bag down and parked herself in the seat next to Robb, throwing Lou an exasperated look as she twisted the straps of the baby harness over her dress. 

“Sorry about that. How are you? You look good. We haven’t seen you in years. We were just saying that the other day, weren’t we? Wondering what you were up to.” Jean said this all in a single breath, a great whooshing rush of air that left Lou rocking back on her seat.

“Yeah, it’s been too long.” Lou lifted her coffee and sipped the cold contents. “My fault. I should have come down earlier. I should have been at the wedding.”

“You had other stuff on.” Robb shrugged.

“We got your present,” Jean added. “Very thoughtful.” This was said with a raised brow and Lou grinned back at her.

“I appreciated it,” Robb said.

“I’ve been stuck listening to Led Zeppelin ever since.”  
“Hey, she could have played Zeppelin anytime. This is Zeppelin as they’re meant to be heard.”

“Vinyl doesn’t sound any different or better than a CD or digital.”

“It does,” Lou and Robb said in unison.

The waiter came with their drinks and created a pause in the conversation.  
Jean lifted Zen from the harness and sat her down on her knee, keeping her upright with one hand. Zen whined and burbled, and then tried to stuff both her fists in her mouth, her small feet kicking in the air.

Lou downed a mouthful of her cold coffee, grimaced, and pulled the fresh mug towards her. “Now’s a good a time as any to fill me in on what I’ve missed.”

“Well!” Jean grinned and then launched into a detailed account of her and Robb’s lives since they’d last seen Lou. About their jobs, getting married, getting pregnant and having Zen and the changes that had brought to their lives. Lou nodded along, smiled and laughed.

“And you? What have you been up to?”

Lou fiddled with her lighter, her thumb brushing back and forth over the flint wheel. “Still got the club, that’s going pretty good. Finally did the California road trip that I was always saying I would do. Did the Big Sur Coast, Monterey to San Luis Obispo. Went inland for a bit, it was shit, headed back to the coast and made my way up here. Did some beach combing. Apparently shell collecting is in right now.”

“Urgh, tell me about it.” Robb threw her head back. “Our neighbours are obsessed. I blame pinterest.”

“Are you going back to New York?” Jean asked.

“Eventually. The club won’t run itself.” Not entirely true; she knew that the girls would have it all well in hand.

Jean fiddled with Zen’s top, looking down at her daughter. “We heard that Debbie’s out of prison.”

“Yeah,” Lou said slowly. She narrowed her eyes. “Has been for a bit now. Why?”

Jean continued fussing with Zen’s clothes, making Zen frown and fuss herself. Robb was looking anywhere but at Lou, or her wife and child. 

“Just wondering what she’s up to.”

“Enjoying her freedom I imagine.”

“You don’t know?”

“I got a text from her a few days back. She seemed good.”

“Look,” Robb cut in. “We all saw the news and we heard some stuff from some old sources, and it doesn’t take a genius to put it all together.”

“Put what together?” Lou flicked the wheel on her lighter repeatedly. 

“The Met? All those jewels that were stolen.” Robb smirked triumphantly. “You can’t say you didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“I didn’t,” Lou lied smoothly. “They caught the guy who did it. Not quick enough to stop him from liquidating it all but still.” She had been purposefully ignoring Becker’s trial and the media frenzy that had flown up around it. One of the joys of being on the road had been the lack of cell reception. 

“Debbie’s ex.”

“Coincidence.” Lou shrugged. “Guy was always dirty and shit at what he did. It was only a matter of time before he got caught.”

Robb’s knowing smirk and morphed into a shit eating grin.

“I’m retired,” Lou said. Flick, flick went her thumb over the wheel on her lighter making sparks but no flame. “I’m a legitimate business owner these days. Cons like that are a young person’s game.”

Robb folded her arms and continued grinning at Lou, smug as fuck.

Jean’s phone buzzed and she performed a slight juggling act with Zen to retrieve it from her bag. She grinned down at the screen and then beamed up at Lou.

“This had nothing to do with me,” Robb said quickly as Jean’s thumb moved across the screen of her phone typing out a reply to her text.

“What had nothing to do with you?” Lou bounced her foot of the ground, suddenly uneasy.

“Is Debbie staying with you?” Jean asked.

Lou made a non-committal noise. Something was going on. They were up to something.

“And if she is staying with you is it just short term? Till she gets back on her feet? Are you guys actually together this time around? Because if you are together then this is going to be embarrassing.”

“What’s going to be embarrassing?” Lou pushed herself up in her seat, eyed Jean and then Robb who looked guilty as hell, and back to Jean. Before Jean could explain anything Lou had her answer in the form of a woman hurrying up to them.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, breathless. She pushed her sunglasses up her head, holding her hair back. She stooped to press a quick kiss to Robb’s cheek and then to Jean’s, gave Zen a little poke and grin, and sat down, letting out a long breath. “My meeting ran over. Some of those guys really just love to hear themselves talk.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Robb said.

Jean had brightened up. “Lou this is Lia, Lia this is Lou.”

Lia’s eyes widened as she looked over at Lou, clearly noticing her for the first time. Lou raised her hand in greeting.

“Oh.” Lia’s eyes were as wide as saucers. She turned slowly to Jean and Robb. “I didn’t realise you guys already had company.”

“Lou’s an old friend from way back. She’s just passing through.” Robb picked up her smoothie and took a long sip, pulled a face at it, and put it back down on the table. “Lia here advises start-ups.”

“Small businesses only,” Lia said, holding her hand up. “I’m not interested in some trust fund baby’s idiot ideas.”

“Lou owns a business,” Jean piped in. 

Lou resisted the urge to squirm. Lia seemed… nice? She had no idea. Attractive; her hair a little windblown and held back by her sunglasses, her skin clear and lips an artificial bright pink; the suit she was wearing was neat if a little conventional. She was someone who a few years back Lou would have gone for, would have loved peeling that suit off of her and wrinkling it up. Especially when she was just passing through, no harm in having a little fun. 

But…

But Debbie was back in New York. 

“Oh, Zen’s getting a little cranky,” Jean said. Zen was staring wide eyed at everything around her and making the odd little “buuuh” noise. “I’m going to take her for a little walk to settle her down. Come on, Robb.”

Robb rolled her eyes, smiling at her wife’s antics. She offered Lou an apologetic shrug and dutifully stood to follow after her wife, pushing her smoothie towards Lia. “Have fun, kids.”

“We’ve been set up,” Lia said watching Robb and Jean saunter off. She turned back to Lou. “I haven’t had lunch yet so I hope you don’t mind if I order food.”

“I don’t.” 

“You want anything? This place wouldn’t be my first choice but the pasta dishes are pretty good.”

Lou shook her head. 

Lia whipped out her phone and started tapping away on it. “They have an app,” she explained. “Saves me trying to find a waiter.”

Lou didn’t envy whoever had to explain restaurants and cafes having an app for ordering to Debbie. 

Lia tossed her table and turned towards Lou, smiling brightly. “So...” She picked up Robb’s smoothie and wrapped her lips around the straw, never breaking eye contact with Lou as she took a long, slow drink. She set the smoothie back down and gently pushed it away. “That was disgusting. Where you from, Lou?”

“New York.”

“You don’t sound like you’re from New York.”

“Then let’s say all over.”

“A traveller. Exciting stuff.” She tapped her phone lighting up the screen, probably checking the time. This was going so well. “Look I don’t think Robb and Jean are coming back until it looks like we’ve hit it off. So how about we make this less painful and actually have a conversation?”

“This how you talk to your clients?”

“It is.”

Lou smiled, sitting up. “Alright. Tell me about your work.”

Lia beamed at her. “Well!”

/\/\/\/\

Drinks away, half empty pizza boxes put on the kitchen island with a weight on top of it to stop the cat from getting in, and Lou was left alone on the foldout couch. Robb and Jean had retreated to bed hours ago taking baby Zen with them, a wry look crossing Robb’s face as she acknowledged the irony of turning their spare bedroom into a nursery only for Zen to co-sleep with her parents. Lou didn’t mind; the fold out was comfy enough and a step up from some of the places Lou had slept these past few weeks.

Robb and Jean had insisted that Lou would stay with them for as long as she was here, and dragged her back with them. They’d invited Lia round after work and she had turned up with a bottle of wine, out of her suit and dressed in jeans and a loose fitting blouse. Lia had turned out to be smart and funny, with terrible taste in both music and films. She had walked Lia out the building, mostly on Jean’s insistence, but also because she had wanted to. Lia had given her her number, just in case she wanted to hang out, and Lou had keyed it into her phone ignoring the churn of guilt in her stomach that warred against the flutter of excitement.

Light seeped in from the poorly drawn blinds illuminating a narrow line across Lou’s face. She stared up at the ceiling. The thin blanket she’d been given kicked down to her knees, one arm tucked beneath her head. She held her phone in her other hand, turning it over and over. It felt warm and heavy. 

She should text Lia.

She should phone Debbie.

She should have actually _talked_ to Debbie before leaving. Not just kissed her and given her a cocky smirk and wink. Should have asked her the important questions:

_Is this happening?_

_Are we exclusive?_

They’d never been exclusive in the past. But then they’d never put any name to their relationship, hadn’t even dubbed it friends with benefits. Just happily fallen into each other’s beds when it suited and never let it ruin their friendship. If Lou had felt a little more for Debbie than Debbie had for her over the years then she had excelled at distracting herself from it. Something that had served her well when Debbie had fallen in with Becker and had seemed disgustingly happy with him, and she had been left shouldering something that felt all too much like heartbreak.

She looked at her phone. She should text Lia; ask her for a coffee, no harm in doing that. No harm at all. Her thumb traced over the screen, hovered over the Text icon, slipped off to contacts and hit Debbie’s name. She sat up, pulled one leg close to her, her hand round her ankle, listening to the phone ringing, hoping and dreading Debbie picking up.

_“…Lou?”_

“Hey, Jailbird, I’m keeping you up?”

_“You woke me up.”_

Lou winced. “You needing an early night in your old age?”

Debbie yawned. _“It’s like - oh, Jesus, Lou! It’s four.”“Is something wrong? What happened?”_ Debbie’s voice was thick with sleep but beneath that Lou could hear the concern, the alertness only a hair breath away.

“I’m fine. Just wanted to check in.”

_“Lou,” Debbie whined._

“Debbie,” Lou replied, barely holding back an eye roll.

Debbie yawned again, the sound muffled this time. _“What did you really want?”_

_You. I wanted to hear your voice. Wanted to know if you’re thinking about me. Wanted to ask if we’re together._

“Like I said, just wanted to check in.” She scratched her ankle, frowning.

_“Uh-huh.”_

“Alright, so maybe I couldn’t sleep.”

_“And you thought that because you can’t sleep I should be awake also?”_

“Sharing is caring.”

Debbie laughed. 

“Hey, guess where I am?” Lou asked, brightly.

_“California.”_

“No shit. Where in California?”

Debbie groaned sleepily. _“Death Valley?”_

“Wow, nowhere near.”

_“Then, I dunno, how about you illuminate me.”_

“San Francisco, baby.”

_“Wow. You remember when we - “_

“- of course I remember that.”

_“What about the time we - ”_

“That too.”

Debbie laughed again. _“Are Robb and Jean still out there?”_

“Funny you should bring them up. I am currently at their place.”

_“They’re still together?”_

“Married.”

_“Not surprising.”_

“They have a baby.” Lou pulled the blanket up over her lap, picked a bit of cat hair off it and flicked it to the floor. “A beautiful little girl.”

Debbie exhaled; her breath was heavy down the phone. _“Everyone from the old crowd is settling down and having kids.”_

“Who else has got married? And don’t say Tammy, she doesn’t count. She got married years ago and made no secret about wanting the husband, the kids and the house with a little white picket fence.”

_“Linus got engaged.”_

“Gross.”

_“No arguments from me there.”_

The cat was padding across the room, head up and eyes reflected in the dim light. Lou leaned forward and held her hand out, rubbed her thumb across her fingers, resisted the urge to make kissy noises. The cat, as cats were wont to do, ignored her. “What’s happening in New York?”

_“You don’t want to hear about that. Tell me about your trip.”_

“I’m saving it all up for when I get back.”

_“Been that boring, huh?”_

“Anything but. What’s Tammy up to?”

_“Call her and ask yourself.”_

“Amita?”

_“Still dating tinder guy. Constance is trying to tell her that she doesn’t have to shack up with the first guy she meets from tinder. Get her to play the field a bit.”_

“Amita? Play the field? Not in this lifetime.” Lou lay back down. Pulled the blanket up to her chest. She left one leg out, her bare toes wiggling in the air. “What else is happening?”

_“Constance is trying to balance being famous with doing cons,”_ Debbie said her voice low. Lou blinked once, slowly, and then let her eyes drift shut. She listened as Debbie talked about Constance, about how she was asking more questions about cons, about how she was planning her own stuff. There was a hint of pride to Debbie’s voice that made Lou smile. 

She was just starting to drift off when she felt the weight of the cat hop up on her. She grunted, stared blearily down at it, at the slow circle it turned before settling on her stomach. The phone had gone silent, but the call was still running. “Deb?”

_“Yeah baby?”_

Lou smiled, turned her head and pressed her face into the pillow. “Thought you’d fallen asleep.”

_“I was waiting for you to fall asleep.”_

Lou breathed. Listened. Debbie was mostly silent; barely even the sound of her breath coming through the phone. “What about you? What are you up to?”

_“Oh, you know, keeping busy. Finished up my parole meetings. Spending more time with Tammy. I uh, I joined a group.”_

“A group?”

_“Yeah, a support group for women who are trying to reintegrate themselves back into society after prison.”_

“Oh.”

_“It’s uh…”_

“You hate it.”

_“I don’t hate it.”_

She hated it. Lou smiled to herself. Being forced to open up in front of strangers was Debbie’s idea of hell and having to listen to a stranger's problems was only a lesser form of hell for her. Debbie struggled enough with opening up to the people she was closest to. 

_“It was my parole officer’s idea. He was concerned that I was too insular. That I didn’t have enough human connections. That people like me, who lost their family while inside, often find themselves adrift and struggle to make new connections. Apparently we’re more likely to re-offend.”_

That last part made Lou laugh, even as her heart sank, as she felt a sucking hole open in her gut. She ran her fingertips over the cat’s head, scritched behind his ears. She wanted to ask Debbie if her parole officer was right, if she felt adrift and lonely, but couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t even form them in her mouth. She exhaled a single sharp breath. She didn’t want to think that she had abandoned Debbie, that maybe Debbie had really needed her and that she had left. She screwed her eyes shut. She had needed this trip. She had needed the time to herself, to think, to live and breathe and just be.

“Little did he know.”

_“Right.”_ Debbie laughed low and soft, and Lou shivered at the sound of it.

“I’m coming home,” Lou said suddenly, blurted it out. “I’m gonna spend another day here and then I’m coming home.”

Debbie’s laughter stuttered to a stop. _“Oh.”_

“Yeah, I’ll be driving back so it’ll take me a while.”

_“Lou…”_ Debbie trailed off. _“You don’t have to.”_

“What?” Lou said sharply, panic spiking.

_“I realise that I probably just sounded like a miserable sad piece of shit. You don’t have to cut your trip short. Not for me.”_

Lou rubbed the heel of her hand to her brow. Tried not to let it show in her voice that Debbie had just given her a small heart attack. “I’m not cutting it short. I’ve been out here for weeks now. It’s not as though I planned to drive every single road out here in one go. I’ll come back one day.”

_“You sure?”_

“Course I’m sure.” Unless you don’t want me to come back? She held that question in silence. Kept it locked behind her teeth. 

_“Guess I should clean up then. Can’t have you thinking I’ve not been looking after the place.”_ Debbie yawned again. _“I’m gonna hang up. I need to try and get back to sleep.”_

“Yeah. Night, Deb.”

_“Go to sleep, Lou.”_

“Working on it.” She waited, listened to Debbie’s low even breathing. Waited some more as neither she nor Debbie hung up. 

_“Lou - ”_

“Go the fuck to sleep, jailbird.” Lou hung up, stared at her phone until the screen dimmed then went out. It lit up again, buzzed in her hands with an incoming message from Debbie. _“G’night Lou.”_

She tossed the phone over to the coffee table, missed and watched at it hit the edge and bounced to the floor. With a shrug she looked back to the cat and resumed scritching his ears. “I just know that you’re gonna keep me awake all night.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The problem with the loft was its size. This huge, cavernous empty space, with its hard bare floors and its tiny bedrooms with doors that locked.
> 
> She loved and loathed it. 
> 
> She was the interloper carving her place into Lou’s perfectly crafted nest. She was almost like a disease, scrubbing away the remnants of Lou and leaving her own little scars in their place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was too lazy to look up, ask or rewatch the movie to find out what kind of dogs Claude had so now they're salukis.

Debbie was perched on the edge of Tammy’s desk, ignoring the way that it wobbled with the vibrations that came up through the floor from the warehouse below. The desk wasn’t likely to collapse; Tammy was too well trained in motherhood to ever own unsafe furnishings. Debbie knew for a fact that every bookcase in her home was bolted to both the floor and wall to stop little hands from pulling them down. And even though she never had her children here - too dangerous, too much of a possibility of them being used against her - Tammy’s fastidiousness to safety would extend from her home to work. 

The office overlooked the warehouse; and through the closed window Debbie could hear the sounds of forklifts moving pallets of stolen goods and of men yelling over the din. This was organised crime on a whole different level and it was a thing of beauty to behold.

From the back corner of the office Manet whined. Debbie turned and shushed him gently. He lay down; head on his paws and stared balefully up at her, bored. Kirchner sat next to him, older and wiser, and used to Debbie even if he hadn’t seen her in years. 

The office door opened and Tammy walked in, hard hat on and hi-vis vest over her sweater. Safety first: all criminals here knew to wear their PPE when on the warehouse floor.

“Sorry about that,” she said, pulling off the vest and hard hat and hanging both on the coat rack by the door, next to Debbie’s long summer duster. She smoothed down her sweater, a lovely faded pink today, her hands lingering over her stomach. “What was it you were saying?”

“I wasn’t, you were talking.”

Tammy blew out a breath; put a hand to her forehead. “Right. Right. I was. You remember Ivy?”

“I do. Isn’t she still in jail?”

“Well that’s what I was going to ask you.”

Debbie shrugged.

“Lou will know.”

“She’s not back yet.”

Tammy stared at her flatly. “I know you’ve missed some advances in technology while you were in prison but I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with phones.”

Debbie hadn’t spoken to Lou in almost two weeks, not since she’d been woken up in the ass end of night and Lou had announced she was coming home. She’d had the odd text, a picture here and there, enough to know that Lou was alive and she was travelling, but little else. How long did it take to drive back from San Francisco? They’d done it once, years and years ago, driven down there in a beat up old truck that Lou had acquired. Debbie had slept through most the trip, her feet up on the dash and the seat back. She should have paid closer attention. Maybe then she’d have a better idea of where Lou was, how long she’d be, and what the hell was taking her so long. 

“You could just ask Lou yourself. Pretty sure you have her number too.”

Tammy moved behind her desk, pulled her seat out and dropped down in it. She looked up at Debbie, the angle making the dark circles beneath her eyes more pronounced. “I doubt that she’ll pick up for me.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Debbie slipped off the desk and moved to the window and peered down at the work below. It really was amazing what Tammy had pulled off. Manet whined again.

“I can’t believe you stole Claude’s dogs.”

“Liberated.” Debbie turned back around. “I liberated his dogs. And they’re my dogs now.”

As she soon as she heard that Claude had the dogs she knew she couldn’t possibly let them go to a shelter. He’d bought Kirchner years ago, back when she’d still been with him, and she had fallen quietly in love with the puppy, while maintaining out loud that she didn’t really like pets. Manet had been acquired while she was in prison. That Kirchner remembered her was a shock. But as soon as she and Constance had made their way into the shelter, opened the cage door, he had stood up and yipped happily, his tail wagging so hard his entire back end had swung back and forth. Manet was a little less sure, but he’d trusted Kirchner and come with them with little fuss. Constance had even found herself a dog, a little googly-eyed mutt with short bent legs she had proudly dubbed her “goblin son”.

Constance had been thrilled to work with Debbie again and even more thrilled when she was told that they were going to liberate some dogs from a known kill shelter. Debbie had only wanted Kirchner and Manet; Constance had insisted that they take all the animals to an ethical shelter and had left a sizable donation to cover the cost of looking after the animals. “Think of it as banking good karma, boss-lady,” she’d said with a wink, a salute and some other hand gesture that Debbie hadn’t even bothered to waste the energy trying to decipher. But that had meant they needed a van, and that had meant dragging Tammy into it, and then Nine Ball to help cover their tracks.

Debbie didn’t want to admit that the little dog heist had been the most fun she’d had since the Met.

Definitely didn’t want to admit that she was bored out of her skull.

Tammy had said that there was more to life, but if there was then Debbie hadn’t found it.

“Still.” Tammy’s gave both dogs a disapproving look. Manet’s tail thumped against the ground in a slow, unsure beat.

“Well, I can’t believe you got pregnant again.”

Tammy frowned at her, her hands going to her belly once more. She sighed, long and low. “It wasn’t planned,” she said quietly. “Just, with the money coming in, there was cause for some celebration.” As far as Tammy’s husband was concerned a distant relative of Tammy’s had died and left her a couple of million. She’d separated the rest of her earnings out; some of it secured away for Keri and Derek, some for herself as a rainy day fund, and the rest had been invested into her new enterprise of making herself the most successful and lucrative fence on the east coast. 

“I know.”

“I thought I was done.”

“I know.”

Tammy sighed again. “Michael quit his job.”

Debbie watched as Tammy picked at the cuff of her sleeve, pulled an errant hair from it and flicked it to the floor. 

“I mean,” Tammy said. “It’s not as though we can’t afford it.”

“He’ll be around a lot more.”

“Yeah.”

“Could help with the housework.”

“What housework? We hired a house keeper.”

“You two can spend more time together.”

“Yeah.” Tammy’s voice was low, distant. She looked away, chewing on her lip. She ran her finger along the edge of the desk. “It caught me off guard, his quitting his job. I knew he didn’t exactly like it, but he said he found it fulfilling. And I was pretty sure he was sleeping with his secretary.”

“Tammy...” This was turning into the kind of conversation that Lou was better at handling. Debbie pushed back against the wall, folded her hands together, and found an interesting spot on the far wall to stare unblinking at. 

“And now he says he’s going to start a carpentry business. Build furniture or some nonsense.”

“If that’s what he wants to do. Those shelves in your den are pretty good.” She kept her tone carefully neutral. 

Tammy snorted. “Michael didn’t build those.”

“Did Lou?”

“No, a friend of hers. Some beefy woman with fists like glazed hams.”

Debbie smirked. “You been thinking about those fists. They been keepin’ you up at night?”

Tammy flushed. “No.”

Debbie cackled softly. It wasn’t funny though; she hadn’t realised that Tammy was so unhappy in her marriage. She’d figured that she wasn’t fulfilled, that she was bored and that her little suburban life wasn’t all that she had hoped it would be, but she hadn’t thought that she was genuinely unhappy. It took the little bit of joy out of cruelly pointing out that this was exactly what Tammy had wanted. 

“Maybe he’ll turn out to be good at it.”

“I doubt it.” 

“Won’t know until he tries.” And even if he did turn out to be crap at it then it wasn’t as though they couldn’t afford this mid-life crisis he was building up to. Of course the problem wasn’t really that he might be wasting their money on a fruitless venture but that he’d actually be about the house, actually be spending time with his family, rather than spending days away for work and possibly boffing his secretary. If he was around the house then how was Tammy to run her secret criminal enterprise? There was a simple answer to that problem but somehow she didn’t think Tammy would appreciate her advising that she get a divorce. “Say you joined a club.”

“Yeah, I took up bridge,” Tammy said flatly. Her hands fluttered over her stomach; she hadn’t disclosed to Debbie how far along she was, her bump only just starting to show and easily hidden beneath clothing. She hadn’t even said if she’d told Michael. He struck Debbie as the exact kind of self-involved idiot who wouldn’t even notice that his wife was pregnant. 

“Why not? You know how to play.”

“Somehow I don’t think he’d believe that my bridge game lasted the entire day. And the next day. And the day after that.” She let out a long sigh, looked down to her barely there bump and moved her hands over it protectively. “It’ll all be different once this one’s born.”

_Just get rid of it._ But if Tammy would have found Debbie’s unspoken advice to get a divorce less than welcome then Debbie cavalierly suggesting that she get an abortion would likely be met with outright hostility. So Debbie kept the words locked behind a rigidly fake and falsely sympathetic smile that Tammy would be able to see through. 

“Is that why you’re asking about Ivy?” Debbie asked. “Looking for someone to partner up with? To cover you through maternity leave? She was never as good a fence as you.”

“Wow, praise from Debbie Ocean.” Tammy raised her eyes to meet Debbie’s, lips twisting into the beginnings of a smile.

“Mean it.”

Tammy shook her head slowly, the slightest blush cresting her cheeks. “I’m just exploring my options. I’ll figure something out.”

Nine Ball would be who Debbie would go for. Invite her in as a partner, step back and watch as she modernised the whole operation and raked in the profits. Tammy and Nine Ball would be a formidable partnership. But there was always the risk that he men working here wouldn’t listen to Nine Ball; it was a wonder they listened to Tammy. If not Nine Ball then Lou would be the obvious choice, but she wouldn’t want it. Constance had neither the experience nor the ability to run it. Rose and Daphne were right out. Amita was a possibility. She had experience shifting stolen goods, had nerves, and despite the sweet outer casing she had a solid and practical core and just enough steel to make it work.

After Amita the only other choice was Debbie. There wasn’t a chance in hell Tammy would entrust this to Debbie. Tammy barely trusted Debbie to look at pictures of her kids. 

Debbie pushed herself up from the wall. “I’m gonna go. I need to walk these two and I have group in the morning.”

“How’s that going?” Tammy sat up, eyes alight with genuine interest. The only person more surprised than Debbie herself that she’d stuck with the group was Tammy. 

“Good.” Not entirely a lie.

Tammy pulled a face. “You hate it.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“Who else has said that? Who else knows about your little support group?” Tammy’s eyes widened. “Did you tell Lou?”

“Is that such a surprise?”

“You want me to be honest?”

“No, I want you to lie.”

Tammy smirked. “Fine. No it’s not a surprise that you’d tell Lou, you’re very good at sharing, Debbie.”

It shouldn’t have stung, but it did. Prison had made her soft in the strangest and most vulnerable of ways. She whistled for Kirchner and Manet, walked to the coat rack and pulled off her duster, slipping it on.

“Did you tell Lou about the dogs?”

Debbie opened the office door and eyed Tammy, giving her a half-smile. “Of course I did.”

Tammy threw her head back. “Ha! You used to be better at lying.”

“New me. Honesty all the way though.” Debbie waved as she left the office, carefully walking down the steel steps, dogs trotting down ahead of her and waiting at the bottom for her to catch up. 

She could offer to help Tammy, take a little of the weight from her, but selling on the goods had always been the most boring part of committing crimes.

/\/\/\/\

The dog park was thankfully not full. Manet was running laps around the other dogs while Kirchner padded along at Debbie’s side, stopping for the occasional sniff.

It was finally cooling off; the early august evening giving way from the heat of the day to a more bearable temperature. Debbie ambled slowly, watched other dog walkers and their dogs; those that wouldn’t let their dogs off the lash even though it was allowed, those that barely paid any attention to their dog; those that had come as a couple and were more interested in each other than what was happening around them. She eyed pockets with the telltale bulge of a wallet or phone, bracelets and watches clasped loosely around wrists, and her fingertips itched. She didn’t give in to the temptation; she liked this dog park, it was one of the few that allowed dogs off leash at all times. 

She walked slowly, with slow ponderous steps, her arms loosely crossed and her hands holding the opposite elbows. This had become a habit since leaving prison; she had suddenly found herself not knowing what to do with her hands. She had never been the fidget that Lou was, who always had something in hand to play with, and she had never been able to pull off hooking her thumbs in her pocket or belt like Lou did, hip cocked and head tossed back; the pose felt unnatural on her. But she used to know what to do with her hands; used to be able to let her arms hang comfortable at her sides. If she wasn’t self-hugging herself then she was tugging the cuffs of her sleeves down and gripping them in her fingers like a lost child. 

It was pathetic.

Utterly ashamedly pathetic.

She forced herself to drop her hands to her side, gripped the leashes in one hand and let the other fall to Kirchner’s head. He nosed up into her hand, and she stopped walking to give him a proper scratch behind his ear.

“Salukis huh?”

Debbie turned towards the voice. A man stood two paces behind her; he had one hand slipped half in his pocket, his other loosely held a leash; his eyes were hidden behind designer shades, his hair tucked beneath a beanie, and his beard trimmed in neatly in a way that reminded her of Claude. By his side a husky panted, its thick fur bushed up around its harness. 

“They can be high maintenance,” he said. He slipped his glasses off and tucked them into the collar of his t-shirt, revealing grey-blue eyes that couldn’t hope to compete with Lou’s.

Debbie stared at him. He had to be at least ten years younger than her, good looking, she supposed, in that douche bro kind of way. A fit-bit was clasped around one wrist and a woven leather band on the other; he wore a silver ring on his left pinkie. His shirt and jeans were probably designer; expensive and made to look like he’d got them form a thrift store. Twenty years ago she would have been all over him, walking out his apartment the next day her pockets jingling with every valuable she could stuff in them. She would have given Lou his shades as a gift. His lips pulled back into a smile, revealing too white teeth.

“I’ve seen you around a few times. Always on your own.”

That was creepy bordering on terrifying. Debbie didn’t let a single muscle in her face twitch as she continued to stare at him. 

His gaze swept over her, from head down to her feet and raking back up her to meet her eyes, his lips pulling into a small leering smirk. Confident bordering on arrogant. Debbie revised her initial assessment; he was probably closer to twenty years younger than her. Possibly she should have been flattered; felt a twinge and flutter that she could still attract men younger than her; even after prison, but all she felt was contempt curdling low in her stomach. 

He shifted on his feet, his smirk pulling at the corner of his lips; he tossed his head back and looked down at her. “You want to get a coffee?”

Her expression didn’t change; she held her flat stare until his smile faltered and gave way to a frown, confused at first then edging towards anger; his lip curling.

“Fine,” he muttered. He tugged his dog’s leash and turned to go, letting slip, “bitch,” under his breath as he skulked away towards another woman, walking a Pomeranian, to try his luck there.

The contempt she felt for him burned, pushed up into her chest, and morphed to contempt for herself too. 

Kirchner bumped into Debbie’s leg and she looked down at him.

“Come on, boy, let’s go home.” She whistled for Manet, who abandoned tormenting the small dogs to bound over to her. She clipped him and Kirchner’s leashes to their collars and left, didn’t look back at the idiot woman who was laughing too loudly at the douche’s jokes.

_/\/\/\/\_

The problem with the loft was its size. This huge, cavernous empty space, with its hard bare floors and its tiny bedrooms with doors that locked; the way the bedrooms looked down over the huge space, a vantage point to watch those below. The sparse kitchen shunted to the side with its old oven and two fridges. The stage that still held the model of the Met; something she should have destroyed weeks ago. The toilets that were once public and Lou had never bothered to remodel and still had cubicles complete with a broken door and an ancient condom machine on the wall. 

She loved and loathed it. It was too big and claustrophobic all at once. 

The place was filled with all of Lou’s crap; the big and little reminders of her, echoes of her presence. After the first week on her own Debbie had made a concentrated effort to sprinkle more of her stuff throughout the place; a lamp here, a new cushion; bits and pieces that were unmistakably her style and not Lou’s; simple and chic, classically elegant slipped between a sheep skull and a lamp made out of a gin bottle. An art print opposite a wall full of Polaroid’s taken at what looked like a New York Dolls tribute gig. The dogs’ bowls in the kitchen, their bed tucked into one of the alcoves. She’d purposefully left her shoes by the couch in the middle of the floor every day, her coat often thrown over the back of it. It was like marking territory. She the interloper carving her place into Lou’s perfectly crafted nest. She was almost like a disease, scrubbing away the remnants of Lou and leaving her own little scars in their place. 

Lou’s bike was still over to the side gathering dust because Debbie couldn’t bring herself to touch it. Lou had flown to California, had arranged to have a bike waiting for her through an old contact and left her bike here, joked that Debbie could take her for a ride of she wanted. 

The last Debbie had seen of Lou they had been stood in the kitchen, Debbie still in the leggings and too big t-shirt she had slept in, and Lou all packed and ready to go, downing a hot pocket and a coffee, because, despite being able to cook, she ate like a home alone thirteen year old. They had stood too close and too far apart, both talking but neither actually saying anything. An empty conversation about Lou’s flight and how Debbie would spend her day. It wasn’t until Lou’s phone pinged to say her Uber was there that the mood had shifted, that the fact that Lou was leaving and Debbie had no idea when or even if she would see her again really hit her. She’d had to clench her teeth together to stop herself form ordering Lou to stay.

Lou had swung her bag over her shoulder, moved over to Debbie and, maybe she had meant to kiss Debbie on the cheek, a quick peck, or maybe she had just meant to hug her or maybe she hadn’t meant anything and was just that bit too close of Debbie, but Debbie had moved her head, let Lou’s lips fall on hers and gripped Lou’s jacket, pulled her in close. It hadn’t even been much of a kiss, just their lips pressed together, tight and unmoving, her hand on Lou’s jacket, and Lou’s curled round her biceps. Lou had tasted of the coffee she had just drunk. They’d parted and Lou had grinned, pleased as fuck, and attempted to wink even though Debbie had told her at least a thousand times that she couldn’t do it. 

And that had been that.

Lou had left and Debbie had been alone. 

Alone with her thoughts and her regrets, with the burning twitch beneath her skin to do something but no idea what it was that she wanted to do. It was worse than prison. At least in prison she was in survival mode; avoid the gropey guards, try not to piss off the drug dealers, had the Met heist to plan, had to think of ways to stop herself going mad. In prison she’d had energy. It felt like she had used to last of it on the heist. Or sent it away with Lou. 

She had gone to visit Danny again; sat and talked to him for close to an hour. Sent a message to one of Rusty’s old numbers on the off chance he was still checking it. That had been at the end of May; she’d still had no reply. She’d tried a couple of other numbers that he’d used in the past and there’d been no reply from them. 

She’d given up on ever expecting Rusty to reach out to her. Decided that Tess was probably dead or sitting on the same beach Danny was.

All those people she had known. All gone - _poof!_ into the ether and she was left behind. Now she had to try and forge a new friendship with Constance, but it was more teacher student and frankly half the time she couldn’t understand what Constance was saying. Had to navigate the ways hers and Tammy’s had evolved and changed, forget the old hurts between them and not speak of the resentment she still felt. 

Tonight the loft felt especially empty. And she was feeling especially morose. 

She’d showered and changed into her pyjamas for the night, settled down onto the couch tucked into the corner that still smelled of Nine’s kush, and curled her legs up under her, glass of merlot in hand and prepared to continue her catch up on all the TV she’d missed while in prison. Constance had sent her a list, one that was constantly being updated; most Debbie gave up on after only a few episodes. After the focus she’d held onto through prison and during the heist she found herself unable to concentrate. Her mind wandering or staying blank but with a dissociative awareness that she was sitting there staring and not doing anything. Wasting her day. Her time. Her freedom.

Manet noisily chewed on an old knotted rope toy in the middle of the floor, while Kirchner laid on the rug by Debbie’s feet, eyes always on her. His lifted his head and stared up at her.

“Stop judging me,” she told him. She flicked the TV on and fired up Netflix; settled back to watch whatever was next on the list Constance had set up. She kept her eyes on the screen, sipped her wine, and took nothing in. 

Her phone lay on the arm rest. She could text Lou and ask her what was taking so long. Or she could respect Lou’s wishes to travel on her own, to escape and enjoy her freedom. Lou said she was coming back and Debbie just had to be patient. Lou was coming back. Debbie trusted her.

She _trusted_ her.

She picked up her phone and typed out a message, considered it, deleted it and started again. Deleted that attempt too. She downed the last of her wine and typed out another text. 

Deleted. Deleted. Delete.

She dropped the phone down on the couch. Kirchner shifted up to his haunches, stared at her balefully. “What? I told you not to judge me.” She switched off the TV and stood up, followed the little night routine she had set out for herself: dogs out the back, glass of water to take up to bed with her, and then off up to bed. The dogs retreated to their basket, curling up in a heap of long legs and tails. She headed up the stairs, walked past the room that Lou had set up for her, and went to Lou’s room. Her shit was spread out all over the space. She left the door open, she’d probably wake up in the night and freak out that it was open and have to close it, but for now she left it open because she could. She set her glass of water down and put her phone next to it, sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

Group in the morning. Then she’d visit Danny.

And then…

She closed her eyes and swallowed. And then she had the rest of her day, she reminded herself. Maybe she’d text Lou.


End file.
